China’s National Sword ban on importing non-industrial plastic waste from other countries was the sustainability wake-up call the world needed in order for it to appraise is usage and disposal of plastic products. But while the legislation means more investment has to be directed into recycling and more efficient waste-streams, it leaves a significant amount of plastic waste hanging in limbo while the world plays catch-up.
Global waste
The University of Georgia has calculated the potential global impact of National Sword and how that will impact the world’s plastics and recycling industries as nations scramble to prevent plastic waste from going into landfill and tarnishing an ever-improving green reputation at home.
Published in Science Advances, the research has found that some 111 million tonnes of plastic waste will be displaced between now and 2013 due to the ban, putting the onus on better plastic product design, developing better recycling system and managing the waste stream more effectively.
Associate professor of UGA’s College of Engineering and study co-author Jenna Jambeck said: “We know from our previous studies that only nine per cent of all plastic ever produced has been recycled, and the majority of it ends up in landfills or the natural environment.”
To cope with the rising pile of plastic waste, between 1993 and 2016, the plastic waste trade exploded by 800 per cent, with China accepting some 106 million tonnes – nearly half the world’s plastic waste imports.
China and Hong Kong imported more than 72 per cent of all plastic waste, but most of the waste that enters Hong Kong is then moved into China. High income countries of the Americas, Europe and Asia account for more than 85 per cent of all global waste exporters and the European Union is the top exporter of plastic waste as a trading bloc.
"It's hard to predict what will happen to the plastic waste that was once destined for Chinese processing facilities," said Jambeck. "Some of it could be diverted to other countries, but most of them lack the infrastructure to manage their own waste let alone the waste produced by the rest of the world."
Cheap processing levies made China a less expensive option for those able to export their plastic waste and it used to be a profitable business for China, which processed and resold imported post-consumer plastic waste domestically, but more recently, the quality of plastic received was too poor to turn a profit and China itself was producing enough plastic waste to recycle at home.
Imports of plastic waste to China contributed to an additional ten per cent of plastic waste on top of what they were managing domestically due to the rapid economic growth experienced across the country and the rise of convenience and consumerism.
"Without bold new ideas and system-wide changes, even the relatively low current recycling rates will no longer be met, and our previously recycled materials could now end up in landfills," stated Jambeck.
